The Iowa Review

Black, Malachi

Old Photographs

Carlson-Wee, Anders

The Mark

Skolfield, Karen

Army SMART Book: Inspirational Quotes (II)

Reges, Margaret

Diver

Mcleod, Kembrew

From the Underground Archive: Lisa Jane Persky's Photographs of Debbie Harry

Brown, D. F.

Ghost of a Person Passing in Front of the Flag

Blackinton, Theresa Dowell

Next Time, the Whale

Why I Never Wrote about the Army

Barnhart, Graham

the iowa review 23
graham barnhart
My Pittsburgh 
For as long as I was gone 
my Pittsburgh was a summer 
city of telephone poles 
tacked all over with beer bottle caps.
In the evenings, deer wandered 
Forbes Avenue on their way 
to or from the river.  
No one was surprised when lovers 
spent afternoons leaning  
naked from bedroom windows 
calling   Marco—        Polo— 
On their sills amber 
glasses of iced tea emptied 
and filled with sunlight.
When I came home there was snow—
Beautiful in the way beautiful 
means absent, hoofprints appeared 
regularly at the crosswalks,
but the deer were no longer seen.
Hoping to become vessels 
for which to pour into 
need not also mean 
pouring out, lovers spent
the winter whispering 
—Marco        —Polo 
back and forth in the cold parks 
until, lips pressed to their ears, 
they heard each other 
saying only —Marco 
          —Marco          —Marco


English

My Pittsburgh

Mother of Pearl

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